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July 16, 1999

After you distribute a customized installation of Microsoft Office 2000, you might need to update installation options for some features. This need commonly arises when you stage your deployment of Office applications from a single administrative installation point.

The soon-to-be-released Custom Maintenance Wizard helps you make changes to features of your Office 2000 installation. For example, if you have already deployed most of Office 2000 Premium, you can use the Custom Maintenance Wizard to change the installation state of Microsoft Outlook® 2000 from Not Available to Run from My Computer. When you run the wizard on users' computers, their installations are updated accordingly.

You can also use the Custom Maintenance Wizard with any other software products that use the Windows Installer.

Toolbox   The Office Resource Kit includes the Custom Maintenance Wizard (Maintwiz.exe). See the Office Resource Kit (orktools.exe) download to install this wizard. You can find this downloadable file on the Office 2000 Resource Kit Downloads page.

Saving new installation options in a CMW file

Similar to the Custom Installation Wizard, the Custom Maintenance Wizard reads the Windows Installer package (MSI file). When you make changes to the installation options, the Custom Maintenance Wizard saves your changes in a product configuration file (CMW file).

Important   You must use the same MSI file to create a CMW file that you used to install Office 2000. If you use the MSI file for Office Standard to create your CMW file, for example, and then apply the CMW file to installations of Office Premium, the Custom Maintenance Wizard generates an error message and stops running.

To create a CMW file

1. Start the Custom Maintenance Wizard.
2. On the Open the MSI File panel, enter the path to the MSI file that you used to install Office.
3. If you are running the wizard for the first time, on the Open the CMW File panel, click Do not open an existing CMW file.

   – or -

   To use an existing CMW file, click Open an existing CMW file and enter the path to the CMW file.

4. On the Select the CMW File to Save panel, enter the path to the CMW file to which you want to save your new settings.

   If you are using an existing CMW file, this file appears as the default.

5. On the Set Feature Installation States panel, select new installation options for the features you want to change.

   Features are displayed in the same hierarchical tree that appears in the Custom Installation Wizard. For assistance with this panel of the Custom Maintenance Wizard, click Help.

Tip   When you run the Custom Maintenance Wizard, you can use the /x command-line option to completely expand the feature tree.

Running the wizard to update users' computers

To update users' installed feature configuration, run the Custom Maintenance Wizard on users' computers from a command line. Use the /c command-line option and include the name of your CMW file. For example:

<path to Custom Maintenance Wizard>\maintwiz.exe /c <path>\MyConfig.cmw

To create a log file, use /l command-line option with the name of the log file to save. For example:

<path to Custom Maintenance Wizard>\maintwiz.exe /c <path>\MyConfig.cmw /l <path>\MyLogFile.log

To run the program in quiet mode, append a /q to the command line.

Why hidden features remain hidden

When you install Office, you can use the Custom Installation Wizard to hide features. This setting is recorded in the MST file, and Office 2000 does not display the feature to users during Office Setup or when users run Setup in maintenance mode later on.

When you update your Office installation by using the Custom Maintenance Wizard, you can change the installation state of a hidden feature. For example, you can install a hidden feature that was not installed during the original Setup. However, the feature remains hidden in the MST file. When users run Office Setup in maintenance mode, the feature does not appear in the feature tree.

This circumstance occurs because the CMW file does not overwrite the original MST file. The only way to unhide a feature in this scenario is to uninstall Office, create a new transform that displays the hidden feature, and then reinstall Office. For more information about how to hide or unhide features during Setup, see How to Select Office Features in the Office 2000 Resource Kit.